“Jasmine Big Six? Oh no… Let us not talk about it. Right now, we are looking for a taxicab. No…Last time we paid Rs.1200/- Now, one guy has agreed to take us around at half the rate. It’s biting cold up here: We’ll return tonight”. They were tourists, no doubt. May be they had come to this bill station at the wrong time. The guy who was talking to some one back home, was using several code words like “Jasmine Big Six now and then, not loudly of course.

Gone are the days when we considered ourselves as children of Mother India. There were several local festivals even in those days but we looked forward to Independence Day and Republic Day. The national songs like Vande Matharam or Janagana Mana were such bindings force that we believed that the formation of linguistic states were just for administrative convenience. Now, everything has gone upside down. How I wish we have some one like Gandhiji or Nehru or other Gandhians amidst us!.

I still remember those wonderful days when Jawaharlas Nehru used to tell the children, time and again, “Oh, how lucky you are! Whichever state you belong to, you are all Indians. You are the Children of this vast country and you are at liberty to live in any corner of India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Now, the influence certain regionalists have badly affected the people and they treat the neighbouring states as neighbouring nations involved in some border problems.